A RE-EVALUATION OF THE HISTORY OF COMMUNISM-ARTICLES BY JOSEPH BALL

NEW-MAO DID NOT WANT HALF OF CHINA TO STARVE TO DEATH: A KEY DOCUMENT IN DIKOTTER'S BOOK ON THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD

An important historical document has emerged which casts serious doubt on allegations that Mao was responsible for mass deaths in China in the Great Leap Forward. This document shows how Mao was actually attempting to promote democracy and restrain excesses during this period. Frank Dikotter's book Mao's Great Famine contains a quotation from this document which he tries to use as evidence that Mao was absolutely indifferent to the fate of the Chinese people and responsible for vast numbers of deaths during the Great Leap Forward. Mao is quoted as saying: 'It is better to let half of the people die so the other half can eat their fill.'

The document that has come to light is a page from an 8 page set of notes of Mao's comments at a private meeting of Communist Party leaders in a hotel in Shanghai in 1959. This page gives us a clear idea of the context of Mao's comments about half of China starving. Once the context is understood, it is clear that Dikotter's interpretation of Mao's comments is absolutely wrong. The document actually shows Mao strenuously advocating mass popular involvement in the policy-making process and trying to prevent the imposition of an excessive workload on the people. Mao's comments about half the people dying appears to be an ironic criticism of the over-ambitious plans of others. By pointing us to a document where Mao is making these comments in private, where he would have had no incentive to mislead his audience, Dikotter has in fact done a great service to the historical image of Mao.

This article provides a translation of this document. It also gives a general evaluation of Dikotter's book and its Great Leap Forward atrocity stories. The article finds that Dikotter does not provide his readers with an adequate assessment of the evidence he uses in his book. It goes onto examine other evidence presented by Dikotter, as well as other sources about the Great Leap Forward. The article provides further evidence for questioning the thesis that tens of millions died at this time. It points out that once the natural disasters and errors of the Great Leap Forward were overcome, the Maoist economic strategy was very successful. It still provides a model for countries that want to break free from globalization and capitalism. It provides a far better model of economic development than those prescribed by the western countries.

Look at the page of the document showing Mao's comments at the meeting in Shanghai in 1959 here . This page is in Chinese, read the article above for a full English translation.

DID MAO REALLY KILL MILLIONS IN THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD?

Allegations about The Great Leap Forward have been used to destroy the
reputation of Chariman Mao and and the Maoist movement. Until the early 1980s,
even those who were not Maoist were willing to accept that his
revolution had
achieved huge advances in terms of the health and welfare of the citizens of
China. From
the early 1980s, articles
began appearing in the West accusing Mao Zedong and the political party he led
of being
responsible for the
deaths of millions of his citizens during The Great Leap Forward. These figures
have been repeated in
virtually
all discussions about the Maoist era. This is despite the fact
that the evidence for the so-called genocide during The Great Leap Forward is
uncertain to say the least.

The allegations against Mao are part of an attempt to argue that
communism was as bad or worse than
the Nazi regime.
Opponents of communist ideology want to close off the only serious alternative
to the
capitalist
system. Despite this, people around the world still follow the thinking of Mao.
Maoist
thought and
anti-revisionism
remains a focus for radicalism and those interested in an alternative politics.
Maoist ideas are still studied by those involved in national liberation
struggle.
Even controversies over the Cultural Revolution seem to have re-opened.

This article is an analysis of the evidence that Mao 'killed' 30 million Chinese people in the
Great Leap
Forward. This evidence is
shown to have emerged during a campaign against Maoism and the Maoist legacy by
his successor
Deng Xiaoping in the
early 1980s. The demographic evidence is of very questionable origin. Other
evidence presented by
Western authors about massive deaths in this period, such as Jung Chang and
Jasper Becker, lacks sufficient
authentication. This article also contains a discussion of the work of Roderick
MacFarquhar. Evidence exists of big
achievements in economic and social terms during the Maoist era in China.

My article 'Did Mao Really Kill Millions In The Great Leap Forward?' is published on the Monthly Review website.

However, the link below allows access to a version with full page references for all cited work. It also contains corrections to a few typos I made when discussing the discrepancies between the death toll data and infant mortality calculations, which might make these passages a little clearer. Read the article here.

THE NEED FOR PLANNING: THE RESTORATION OF CAPITALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION IN THE 1950S AND THE DECLINE OF THE SOVIET ECONOMY

My article defending the record of Soviet socialist economic planning was published by the online Marxist journal.

Soviet central planning, up until Stalin's death in 1953, created a robust and technically advanced economy. It was not 'unsustainable' as is usually argued. If the socialist, planning system had continued after Stalin's death, the Soviet Union could have avoided its ultimate economic failure. After 1953, the Soviet Union had a stagnant, state capitalist economy. The primary reason for this stagnation was the way the new structure undermined technical progress. Effective planning in this area had been ended but a fully competitive, free market economy was not introduced. Thus no effective incentives for technological innovation existed. This led to a progressive slow-down in economic growth. Before Stalin's death innovation and technical advance had been successfully introduced into the economy via the central plan. After Stalin's death attempts were made to introduce 'endogenous' incentives for innovation that were intended to copy market mechanisms. This was part of a wider effort to introduce market socialism. This hybrid economic system contained inadequate incentives for innovation.

The article also directly addresses the allegation that the nature of the socialist system itself in the Stalin-era led to mass executions and famine.

An email exchange between myself and Steve Heder, a former officer of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), throws doubts on the value of evidence presented against three defendants in the the Khmer Rouge trials. Specifically it undermines the 'Demographic Expert Report' given to the Court. Other evidence of genocide presented in the report also appears to be of little value, although it has been used as a key document in the proceedings.

What exactly happened in Democratic Kampuchea and the ideological motives of the Communist Party of Kampuchea are certainly not clear. However, a thorough examination of the truth would be in everyone's interests. This is not happening in the current trial.

The recent Maoist movement in Nepal inspired many in the belief that a new phase of communist revolution could be starting. However, the leadership of this party have discarded Leninism and the key concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Critics of communism have been assisted in their task by the conflation of
the communism of
Stalin and Mao with the
capitalist societies that were created in Russia and the Eastern bloc after
Stalin's death.
Thus the failures of
this particular variant of the capitalist system are ascribed to Marxist-
Leninism and
the
so-called 'revolutions' of
1989 are portrayed as the last chapter of a mistaken ideology.

The actual record of communism is far more positive than mainstream thinking
would suggest. In a time
when there seems no alternative to rampant Western imperialism and the poverty
and violence it creates, it
may be time to give the history of communism a more sympathetic treatment. The
material here is meant as a modest contribution to this much needed re-
evaluation.